The Pentagon failed to adopt Ukraine’s best tools for downing drones.
The United States and Israel took at least a month to prepare their attack on Iran, assembling the largest arsenal of aircraft carriers and fighter jets that the Middle East has seen in decades. But one gap in their planning became clear during the first days of the war, as the United States and its allies used their most advanced anti-aircraft systems to shoot down swarms of cheap, easily replaceable Iranian drones.
The flaws in that approach have seemed particularly obvious to the leaders of Ukraine, who have more experience countering these drones than any other country. In the fall of 2022, Iran sold the Kremlin designs for a drone known as the Shahed-136, and Russia has since produced and launched tens of thousands of them in its war with Ukraine.
